


The one about the blind owlet and his elk best friend

by beckersher



Series: Owl!verse [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, owl!verse, rodney mckay is owls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckersher/pseuds/beckersher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Yakul and Gus found their way into Rodney's 'Lantean <i>ohana</i> and became cross-species bffs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Yakul

**Author's Note:**

> Owl!verse, or _Rodney McKay is Owls_ started as a series of drabbles and single-line photo reaction posts on tumblr. It follows the idea that, in typical Stargate fashion, an Ancient device was _accidentally activated~_ and transformed Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay into a large, angry owl. Hijinks ensue.
> 
> With time, I hope to amass all the drabbles here, in a single, readable format.

They came across Yakul on Rodney’s sixth wingless trip through the ‘Gate in two years.  They’d been taking things slow, possibly coddling him, but Rodney had been in no hurry to throw himself back to the wolves on the front lines just quite yet, so he let them.  The IOA, however, disagreed; they considered him too valuable an asset (and rightfully so, under normal circumstances) to remain _confined_ to the city.  So there it was: a veritable boot to the ass, kicking him out of the safety of Atlantis with the instruction to _reach out and_ ** _touch_** _people, Dr. McKay.  Do your fucking job.  Stop acting like a naked hatchling and get on with the missions._

Well.  Not with those words _exactly_ , but that was the general gist of the memo.

He wasn’t _nervous_ , per se, his body just didn’t feel right yet.  Like it wasn’t entirely _his._   His typing was still too slow, and clothes felt weird –constraining– especially shoes; Rodney spent a lot of time barefoot those first few months after the change.  Everything looked dark and far away, less sharp.  One of Carson’s bone-shakers had prescribed him a pair of temporary glasses even after he’d complained, rather loudly, but he was only supposed to wear them sparingly as his brain readjusted to seeing with mere human eyes.  Teyla said they made him look _distinguished_ , Ronon made faces when he wore them, and John, well.  John didn’t address them directly, but he liked taking them off of him at night and kissing the indents they left on Rodney’s nose.

At least it didn’t feel like people were constantly looming over him anymore.  He sure as hell didn’t miss _that_.  He could glare his incompetent staff right in their big dopey faces again, and there’d be no mistaking the sneers he gave them _now._   He could yell – on _purpose!_ – until his voice broke and he needed a lozenge, or some tea.  He could flail his arms and snatch things away from people, and he could erase Simpson’s _bad bad what-are-you-_ ** _braindead?!_** _math_ off his favourite whiteboard – _and_ _what was it doing there in the first place?_

Of all the things he could be re-teaching his body to do, hiking across rolling alien foothills was _not_ his first choice.  It didn’t even make the top ten.  In fact, he’d rate it somewhere between pulling on a wet bathing suit, and popping a blister.

“Okay.  _Okay!_   The Science Department needs a break.  _Right now_ , _por favor_.”  And with that, Rodney collapsed onto the grass with a loud sigh of relief.

John looked between Rodney and Teyla helplessly.  She usually handled the pace at which they travelled, having a naturally firmer grasp of how alien oxygen mixtures affected their lungs and so on.  Also, she had a far more diplomatic ‘ _get off your ass and move’_ than John did, which was always appreciated.  But then Rodney was a man born to defy convention, forcing John to think on his feet.  “I _guess_ this looks like an okay spot to–”

“Dr. McKay,” Teyla had other plans though.  “We cannot stop here.  The village is just beyond the next hill.”  Her smile had that slightly strained look that said she was wishing she had her sticks right about then.

“ _You said that three hills ago!_   If this place was _actually_ over the next rise, wouldn’t we be able to hear the _yub-yub_ ’ing of ‘civilization’,” he supplied the air quotes for effect, “by now?”

“Not if they’re under the protection of a shield.”

“HA!  _HA-_ ha!  Comedy gold!  Correct me if I’m wrong, but _you said_ these people were just lumber jacks and farmers.  No ‘higher science’ to speak of, which is why they might find _my services_ exceptionally appealing.  Am I wrong?  I’m not. _Ha_.”  Pleased at winning the bigger dick contest against a woman, Rodney laid back in the grass with a smirk.

John stepped in to steer Teyla away.  “Five minutes, Turkish,” he directed at Rodney, and received an absent hand-wave in return.

* *

Two hills, a wooded dale, and a barely-trickling creek later, the Team came upon a valley of elk-like ungulates.  Extremely friendly and stinking to high heaven, they swarmed around the humans to smell their clothes, their hair, their hands, and to lip at their pockets for food.  One managed to liberate half a powerbar and its wrapper from Rodney’s vest.

“Hey!”  Rodney yelped and gave chase until the creature had swallowed its prize, wrapper and all, and was trumpeting in triumph.  “Fine, take it!  I hope it gives you indigestion, you – you _hoodlum!_ ”

Ronon pulled John out of skewering range of another set of antlers he was too distracted with laughing and clearing the tears from his eyes to manage himself.  He even palmed the top of Sheppard’s head and pointed him toward a worn trail leading off into the trees.  “Looks like the village is that way, right?”

“Huh?  _Oh_.  Yeah, sure looks that way.”  John shook off Ronon’s hand and took up his weapon from where it laid against his abdomen.  He nodded to Teyla to take point before calling out to McKay to stop messing around already and to fall in between them before the deer decided they liked him a little too much and wanted to keep him for themselves.

The warning came a little too late, it seems.  Some ways into the woods, crossing a stream via a conveniently fallen tree, Ronon nudged Sheppard.  In front of them, Rodney was complaining manfully about getting splinters from alien trees and _who knows_ how he’ll react to that!  Why hadn’t it occurred to him to pack along tweezers in his field kit?  Are we sure this tree is steady?  Sure, it _looks_ about a hundred years old, but that only means it was that old when it fell over; it’s been laying here _rotting_ ever since  It could collapse at any moment!

He was working his way across the tree, slow and steady, when it became apparent what Ronon was pointing out: struggling up onto the makeshift bridge after McKay, teetering on wobbly legs, was a tiny spotted fawn.  Probably not more than a week old.  How it had managed to keep up with them since the valley was beyond John, and without its mother…  He glanced around them, checking the woods for Bambi’s mom.  She was nowhere to be seen.  Was that weird?  Baby animals don’t typically stray far from their mothers, and if they do –John guessed– they probably don’t trail after the noisiest thing they can find.  Curiouser and curiouser.

“Hey, _Rawd-ney_ …” Interrupting McKay’s diatribe against everything photosynthetic, John went for _drawling casual_ , so not to startle him _or_ the fawn.

“ _Yes_ , Colonel, _what?_   Is there something you need _right now?_ Can it wait until I’m _off_ of this _accident waiting to happen?_ ”  Both hands were holding onto long-dead branches, as if the slightest breeze would send him toppling over and down onto the riverbed.

“Sure, whatever, I was just curious…  Who’s your friend?”

“ _What?_ What are you–  _…Oh_.”  He saw it: caught up enough to stand unsteadily between Rodney’s feet, leaning slightly against one of his legs.  It was looking straight up at Rodney and blinking tiredly.  It let out a bleat so soft John barely heard it.

“Seems more… _four-legged_ than the kind that normally flock to you.” Atlantis hadn’t lost its reputation as a safe aviary for any bird without a home after they changed Rodney back.  The owl they rescued on Midway was proof of that.  The strange part was that Rodney still had some kind of connection with the birds – more than he _should_ , even as the person they were most familiar and comfortable with.  He could speak to them and they would understand.  Sure, they’d been trained to take orders, but this was beyond commands.  He spoke and they understood, on a _conversational_ level.  But even more astounding than that was that he could also understand _them_.  Not in words, exactly, but closer to intent and feeling.

Owls were one thing – he’d been one of them, he understood them, their wants, their needs – but why would a wild alien deer-thing find comfort in Rodney?  He hadn’t changed that much, he was still abrasive and loud, and _Rodney._ And yet there was this tiny animal, so young it still had a rabbit-like curve to its hind legs, gazing up at McKay like it wasn’t lost at all.

“What do you think it wants?”  Rodney’s hands were flexing like he wasn’t quite sure whether he wanted to let go of his makeshift handrails or not.  Then the fawn trembled suddenly and fell straight down on top of its spindly legs, taking the decision out of Rodney’s hands.  He let go with one hand and crouched, resting it on the fawn’s back, gently holding it in place.

“Perhaps it is hungry,” Teyla suggested.  That would make sense.  “Newborns need to be fed quite frequently.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not in the habit of taking _milk_ offworld.  Are _you?_ ”  He spread his other arm wide and shot Teyla the most contentious look he could manage on short notice, so of course she pulled a yogurt tube out of a vest pocket with a smug smirk masquerading as a helpful smile.  Rodney sneered.  “Do me a favour and don’t tell me who got you into those things.”

“Don’t knock ’em,” John countered.  “They keep her away from the cheese strings.”

“They’re especially delicious when frozen.”  She turned the tube over in her hands, checking the flavour.  “Peach should be gentle enough for its stomach.”

Back on the other bank, Sheppard lowered his voice and leaned in to Ronon, “Where do you think the mother is?”

Ronon shrugged.  “Dunno.  It’s been following McKay since we made the trees.  Didn’t see a mom.”

“ _Since the_ _trees?_   Why didn’t you tell me _then?_ ”  That was, like, fifteen minutes ago!

He shrugged again.  “Thought you noticed.”

John restrained himself from flailing about, and instead just kicked a rock into the water below with a bit too much enthusiasm.  Across the stream from them, Rodney had scooped up the fawn with one arm, tucked it into the crook of his elbow, and had finished crossing the fallen tree bridge at a considerably faster pace than he’d managed the first half.  By the time John and Ronon got across, Teyla had the yogurt open and Rodney was trying to get the fawn to lick it from his finger.

“Like this.”  He demonstrated, licking his own finger.  “It’s not hard.  You’re a mammal, this is hard-wired into your cashew brain from the get-go, _how_ are you finding this difficult?”  Out of frustration, Rodney pokes at the fawn’s lips, leaving behind a dab of yogurt.  It quickly licked the mess off.  “Oh, you’ve _got_ to be kidding me.”  He tapped the fawn’s lips again, more gently this time, and again it licked up the yogurt.  Three more times and it was licking the yogurt from Rodney’s finger.  “A regular _idot savant_.  Great.”

“Can we get moving again?” John spoke up and asked, not unkindly.  “We’re burning daylight here.”

“Whatever.  This isn’t rocket science.”  It felt like he needed three hands, but between said rocket science and being a technically-perfect pianist, Rodney’s hands were dextrous enough to handle this, even while he was still getting used to them.  “Unless you actually want me to _do my job_ , _then_ I’ll need a second set of hands.”

“Lumberjacks and farmers, Rodney!  I don’t think there’ll be anything _to_ scan for.  We’ll be fine.  Teyla, you’re still on point; Ronon, watch the rear; and I’ll make sure McKay doesn’t trip over anything.”

Rodney frowned, but still double-checked the trail they were following for vines or rocks.  “I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“I can think of a couple reasons.  C’mon, the village shouldn’t be much further.”

* *

It was, but that wasn’t the point.

The _Rhebem,_ at first appearance were an intimidating and stalwart people, but once crushing armshakes and headbutts were exchanged, the ‘Lanteans soon realised they, really, just didn’t get out much.  Large and dark, in an Old Germanic kind of way, they chopped down trees, they raised some like-goats, and, John thought after he’d watched a married couple weave yellow blossoms into Ronon’s hair, they probably even liked to press wild flowers in their spare time.

For such solitary mountain folk, they reacted surprisingly well to a group of armed strangers wandering out of the woods carrying one of their herd beasts.  Once the yogurt was gone, Rodney’d nearly forgotten about the creature tucked against his side.  It weighed hardly anything at all, and had probably passed out from the effort of digesting.

“So the youngest one found you, mm?”  One of the large-breasted, tall, and very muscular _rhebem_ women addressed Rodney kindly, and joined him on a carved wooden bench, where he was part of crowd watching Sheppard accept the _Rhebauri’_ s super-hardcore Leadership Wrestling Challenge.  They were both stripped to their underwear, covered in supposedly-significant stripes of red mud, and were circling each other.  The _Rhebauri_ was an enormous hulk of a man: about a head taller than John, twice as wide, and absolutely _covered_ in thick, dark hair.  He had a beard braided into multiple death-metal tassels and a wicked scar running down his back that looked like he fought off a bear and lived to tell the tale.  He probably had, and it was undoubtedly a _really_ good story.

“Wha–?  Oh, this thing.  It, ah, followed us here.  And then it was hungry and tired, I didn’t mean to–”  Had he committed a crime without even knowing it?  Was he next in line to be covered in mud and beaten to a pulp by the Pegasus equivalent of an _American Gladiator?_   Oh god, this was going to be the last time he ever let something with big dopey eyes get the better of him.  He was going to be _dead_ or _in traction_ by morning.

“Do not fret, _Dok-tor_.  This one was born not half a nine-day ago, and lost its mother to mountain claws several star rises later.  This happens often, and normally the calf is also lost to the mountain claws.  Instead, this one has found you, and in doing so, kept its life.  Fortune smiles on this one, _Dok-tor_.”

Rodney believed in fate even less than he believed Sheppard was going to crawl into their yurt that night _not_ completely black and blue, but knowing a creature so young it could barely walk took its life into its own hands…  It inspired feelings inside him normally only his winged family could.  He looked down at it, still dozing in the crook of his arm, and _felt_.  Well,  _shit_.

* *

“If you think you feel bad now, wait until morning when all your muscles have seized up.  We’re gonna have to sweet-talk Noorna and Orten into letting you ride their yak back to the ‘Gate, old man.”  Running his fingers through John’s hair, Rodney was extra careful to avoid the bumps Orten the _Rhebauri_ had put there while seeing if John had the _huevos_ to be worth talking to.

“Thanks for reminding me.”  He tried to swat at Rodney, but something twinged halfway through the motion, either in his shoulder or his back, making him groan and settle back down slowly and painfully.

 _Schadenfreude_ at John’s expense was always Rodney’s weakness.  The man was too good-looking and too lucky not to take at least a _little_ pleasure in his misery.  Though in effort not to be a _complete_ dick, he kept petting through John’s hair, his touch soft and soothing.  The sarcasm, however, he couldn’t help.  “My poor broken Colonel.  If only there was _some_ way I could distract you from your bruises…  It’s a shame you have that pesky ‘ _not during missions’_ rule.”

“That’s a stupid rule.  These people are nice, I’m sure they wouldn’t try to kill us while we’re… _that_.”

“You’re delirious, Colonel.  Downright _loopy_ to be thinking with your dick at a time like this.  Also, I highly doubt this advanced _wood and mud_ technology is anything remotely near soundproof.”  At least it was an older yurt, so it was past the ripe-smelling stage.

“I can be quiet,” John insisted weakly.

“Mmhm?”  Under their shared blankets, Rodney ran his palm over John’s hip and under his shirt, where his abdominal muscles were trembling, more from pained tension than sudden want.  That’s what stopped him from reaching into John’s shorts right away, and instead stretched for their bags and a fresh blister pack of painkillers Rodney _knew_ he put in there the week before.  He popped two and came back with his canteen.  “Don’t give me the stink-eye.  You’ll be useless tomorrow if you don’t sleep, and you won’t sleep if you’re hurting this bad.”  He held out the pills and the water.  “Take them now and I’ll get you off before they kick in.”

“Ever the romantic.”  John took the pills and sipped at the water.

“Shut up and swallow,” Rodney ordered.

He did.  “I’ve heard _that_ before,”  and winked.

“Are you deaf as well as stupid?  I said _shut up_.”  And there it was: spread out before him on alien animal pelts was the man that ruined him.  Slightly broken, and a bit mouthy, but entirely his.  Before John, Rodney was callous and brutal: people _feared_ him and gave him a wide berth.  They rushed to meet his demands and didn’t pester him with moronic questions or unnecessary attention.  Before John, he didn’t _need_ friends, _Science_ was his only mistress and she was good to him.  Science was magnificent!  She was steady and yet challenging, she took him places he’d never even dreamed of going, but made so much sense once he was there.  Science was the love of his life and she was perfect.

Although…

Science never watched classic Doctor Who with him, and she couldn’t play a surprisingly near-flawless air trumpet version of the _Battlestar Galactica_ theme when he needed cheering up.  Science wasn’t the one that sweet-talked the city into automatically opening doors earlier and more quickly, so he wouldn’t run into them as much.  It wasn’t Science that backed him up when he tried to explain to Elizabeth how nearly a dozen baby birds managed to follow them home through the Stargate, and Science didn’t help him raise those owlets as if they were her own.  Science didn’t treat him like he was precious.

John loved him, Rodney was sure of it.  He could see it in the way John’s face softened as Rodney pushed away the blankets and sat atop him, straddling his thighs and palming his hips through his boxer shorts just because they fit under his hands _so well_.  It was like they were made for Rodney to press him down into the ground – not as hard as he’d like to, given that Orten spent the evening tenderizing their fearless leader like a chicken fried steak – but enough to get his point across: he loves John too.

“Now just lie back and think of England.”  John’s skin tasted warm, despite the cool air outside their blankets.  There must been a spice or an oil in the ceremonial mud he’d wrestled in earlier that hadn’t been entirely washed away afterward.  Naked bathing in the river was just as symbolic and ceremonial as the wrestling had been, apparently.  Something about the frigid water invigorating the libido and producing strong children.  –Not that John had too many too many lingering thoughts on making babies lately, but it’s the thought that counts?  At least the philosophy explained why all the _Rhebem_ were so _massive_.

Easing the other man’s underwear over his hips, Rodney’s mouth followed them downward with singular purpose.  No need to tease the man; he was on a mission, and a goal-driven Rodney McKay is the best kind to have.  John wound his hands into the hair behind Rodney’s ears with a moan.  His movements were stiff at first, but gradually loosened up as Rodney worked on him with his mouth and hands until John’s orgasm bore down on him and crashed like a wave.  Kissing John’s hip one last time, Rodney squared his shorts away, laid back down beside him on the furs, and settled the blankets over top of them again.  John curled into him with a warm sigh, between the painkillers and the endorphins, finally comfortable.

“So…” Rodney enquired of the ceiling, “What happened to ‘ _I can be quiet’,_ hm?  Big stinking lie, if you ask me.  I bet half the village heard you.  Maybe they’ll think higher of me in the morning.  Being mated to the head warrior of the Ancestors’ lost city has to come with _some_ prestige, right?”  John wrinkled his nose, whether at _‘mated’_ or being called out on his vocalizations, Rodney wasn’t sure.  “Any bit of help I can get that doesn’t involve conversing with _Heidi_ and _Jörg_ about stripping wood, the better.  …Are you even listening to me?”  Of course not, he was already asleep, breathing softly into Rodney’s neck.  It’s not like he’d particularly invested in winning that argument anyway.  Making John lose his composure is something Rodney’s considerably more proud of, right up there with being able to land a catch like him in the first place.  And besides, they hadn’t even woken the fawn, which was snuggled up in another mess of blankets nearby.  So despite the teasing, they probably weren’t very loud at all.  Double score.

* *

The following morning John was stiff as an arthritic old man like Rodney‘d predicted, not that that stopped him from letting Orten lead him, Teyla, and Ronon through the woods on a show-and-tell nature hike while Rodney stayed in the village with the women to… not hike. The fawn was easy enough to keep out of trouble since it stumbled after him everywhere he went, occasionally tripping over its own legs and face-planting into the dirt.  Once, a dog snapped at its ankles, so Rodney scooped it up into his arms and kept on being led around the _Rhebem_ ’s tooling mill – something that _might_ have been interesting if he was an old-timey space traveller from the 20’s.  Which is clearly wasn’t.  However, he had a job to do, so at great pains to his reputation, Rodney kept his mouth shut and observed the local sad-excuse for _technology_.  He tucked the fawn’s head under his chin as it trembled and shook until it couldn’t anymore and it fell asleep.

As a people, the _Rhebem_ had a very _laissez-faire_ attitude toward survival.  It didn’t matter whether it was animal, vegetable, fish, or fowl; if it couldn’t survive on its own and died, then it clearly wasn’t supposed to live in the first place.  Which meant that the women observed his coddling of the infant near-deer with amused curiosity.  And they were significantly more interested in the makeshift bottle he’d thrown together using a canteen of fresh goat’s milk and a leather glove, than the antenna he’d erected in the middle of the village so that he could conduct more detailed scans of the surrounding area.

The fawn seemed completely content to be strapped to Rodney’s side, freeing both hands for antenna adjustment and emphatic gesticulating and application of sunblock for the rest of the morning and afternoon until Orten and his Team returned from their walkabout.  He was just resting his eyes for a moment, leaning back against the trunk of a Pegasus Blue Spruce when a pair of messy boots and slinky hips sauntered in and struck a pose between him and the sun.

“What’s the news, Science Guy?  Are these people in imminent danger of a meteor shower or the sun exploding?  Is there an Ancient Acropolis over the next mountain?  Oh, oh!  Is the soil made of _Unobtainium?_ ”

Rodney squinted up at him.  “First of all, do not call me that.  That man is an embarrassment to the science community.  And secondly, _nothing!_   There is _nothing here_ but rocks and trees and _trees and_ _rocks!_   I cranked the scanners up as high as they could go considering the equipment we brought, but seriously, John, there’s _nothing_ out there. It makes me think this wasn’t the Stargate’s original location on this planet.”

“You’re saying they moved it?  But aren’t ‘Gates, like, really heavy?”

“Milky Way Stargates weigh 29 tonnes apiece, yes, and ours are roughly the same; considering their volume, _heavy_ is a bit of an understatement.”

“Really, _really_ heavy then.”

“Yet not unmovable, considering it would have been the Ancients that did the heavy-lifting – _if_ the Stargate was relocated at all.  – _Maybe_ the Ancients came here for the _scenery_ , I don’t know!  I hope _you_ found something to justify coming back here, because I don’t know if this suspicious lack of _anything_ and the closest thing to maple syrup we’ve come across since coming to this galaxy is going to cut it – and I’ve already promised Jarta I’d show them how to make _tire d’érable_ next winter.”

“Jarta?”

“Really?  _That’s_ what you got out of all this?  That, and _Stargates are heavy_?”

“Which one’s _Yar-ta_?”

“The big… _Hilda_ -looking one.”  Rodney sighed, and nodded at a strapping blonde with shoulders wider than his.  She was sitting in front of her yurt, sharpening an axe and smoking a long-necked pipe.

Sheppard gulped comically.  “She, uh, doesn’t look like the kinda lady you’d want to disappoint.”

“Exactly.”  Jarta was, in fact, the kind of lady that didn’t mind showing Rodney how to milk a temperamental goat, and found his absolute inability to climb a tree charming instead of annoying.  She wasn’t all that bad, really, but she could still snap him into multiple pieces just by sneezing, so getting on her bad side wasn’t high on his list of priorities.

"Still.  Get your stuff together, we’re headed back to the city.”  John held out a hand and pulled Rodney to his feet; evidently the nature hike had done him some good.

* *

They couldn’t shake it.

The cling-on fawn had remained strapped to Rodney’s side, more out of convenience than anything else, all the way back to the clearing where they first encountered all the other not-caribou.  They’d deposited it with a group of other newborns and their mothers, gave it a firm directional pat on the rump, and then continued back on their way to the ‘Gate, Atlantis, and home.  Conversation quickly picked up again once the caribou were out of sight, swinging back to the topic of the _Rhebem_ and their culture.  The team argued good-naturedly back and forth over what could be in the water that made them grow so damned _big,_ and if it could be modified in such a way that it only made _certain areas_ larger…?

“ _Of course_ you’d go straight down the _bigger penis_ tangent.  Why am I not surprised?  Also, there’s a _lady_ present, _hello_.  Like she’s interested _at all_ in listening to your phallic insecurities.”  See?  Rodney could be a gentleman.  …Sometimes.

Not that Teyla was grateful for his efforts, she’d gotten used to their antics a long time ago.  “Please, do not stop on my account.  _You rarely_ _do_.”  She kept walking, shaking her head, as if she put enough distance between them maybe the male stupidity wouldn’t rub off on her too much.

They took this as permission to go on being crude manly men; Ronon segued from _Swedish-made Penis Enlargers_ and Sheppard’s absolutely _horrific_ Austin Powers impression to the Satedan equivalent of locker room stories.  Rodney nearly broke his ankle in a gopher hole trying to block out the mental images.  Fruitless efforts.  He’d never be the same again.  _Good Lord_.

The fawn caught up with them in a stretch of tall grass, by itself like before, but slightly more sure-footed than in the forest.  This time it began to bleat at them when it was close enough to catch their attention and draw their procession to a halt.  There was a couple moments of quiet blinking between human and … _elk?_   They were going to have to settle on a mental definition for this creature sooner rather than later.  It was like throwing a dart at a dictionary and hoping you’ve hit the right word.

Rodney stepped forward and took the initiative, since _all_ parties present seemed to be doing their best _deer-in-headlights_ impression.  “What are you doing here?  We left you with your family.  Go home.  _Go home!  Go!_ ”  Pointing didn’t seem to do any good.  Yelling didn’t help either, the fawn only continued to blink up at them, and like complete idiots, they blinked back.  So of course they had to lead it back to the herd themselves.  “You belong _here_ , with your kind, not out in the black like some big damn hero.  _Stay_ ,” he commanded and tried backing away slowly.

It stayed, alright, directly between Rodney’s feet.

“…Should we wait until it turns around and then make a break for it?  Cause indirectly quoting Joss Whedon doesn’t seem to be having the effect you were hoping for,”  Sheppard’s smartass observed.  “Probably cause they don’t have cable out here.”

“ _Ha ha,_ Colonel.  When are you going on freaking tour?  Go on, little guy.”  He turned the fawn around, gave it a firm push in the herd’s direction, and backed up some more.  “Quick, before it notices.”  They crested the hill and resumed the long walk back to the ‘Gate.  Hopefully this detour wouldn’t make them too late for their dial-in.

At their faster pace to avoid being late, it took the fawn twice as long to catch them up.  Again they walked it back home and tried to enforce the concept of _stay here_.

The third time, it took until the last decline before the ‘Gate, which held the sneaking suspicion that the creature had _timed_ its pace so that walking it back home now would be too much of a detour and a hindrance.  Sheppard was on his radio, assuring Control that they were _fine_ , nobody was dead, he promised, and they were only delayed due to unforeseen circumstances when there was a telltale headbutt into the back of one of his calves.  _Dammit_.  “ _Rod-ney…_ ”

“What’d I do now?  _Oh, you little_ …”  He looked about ready to beat the thing with his tablet – or at least chase it for a while, maybe tie its legs in a knot – but it was clearly exhausted from the afternoon of trailing over the foothills after SGA-1 and looked about ready to collapse.  Rodney’s legs related heavily to that, and before he knew it he was kneeling beside it and scratching behind one of its ears.  “Stupid animal.  What are we supposed to do with you?”

“Why not take it back with us?”  Everyone looked up at Ronon, who only shrugged.  “That’s what we do with everything else that decides it likes McKay.”

Teyla followed-through with the logic.  “We have relocated young owls to the city for lesser reasons.”

“It’s not a _lost dog!_   _Or_ an owl!”  The fawn leaned into Rodney’s touch with a huffing sigh.  It didn’t seem bothered at all by the arguing aliens.

“No, it is a creature without a mother that refuses to stay with its own kind.  Left here, it would starve or be killed by predators: a fate considerably worse than one it would find in Atlantis.”

Sheppard’s attention was still divided between them and the radio.  “ _I hear you, Control.  Our ETA’s ten minutes._   Take it or leave it, Rodney, but we’re leaving _now_.”

So Rodney took it.

Elizabeth wore the same exasperated look she always did when Rodney came home with another stray not native to ‘Lantea.  Rodney’s rebuttal was that, technically, _they_ weren’t native to ‘Lantea either.  Not that his argument got rid of the _look_ , but he always had to try.  It was the principle of the thing.

 _Where was he going to keep it?_   With him, until it got too big, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.  _What was he going to feed it?_   Athosian goat’s milk at first, and when it finished nursing... grasses, he imagined.  _What about the owls?_   What _about_ the owls?  They hadn’t even seen the fawn yet, how was Rodney to know if they were perfectly fine sharing him among other birds, but four-leggers were completely out of the question?  If they had a problem, he’d sit them all down in a row and give them a stern talking-to.  _Fine.  What was its name?_ That… was a good question.

* *

The fawn remained nameless until he was about the size of a Labrador, mostly because everyone kept waiting for Rodney to decide he looked like a _Piccard_ (the Physicist, not the Starship Captain) or a _Gibson_ ( _Cyberpunk_ rather than _Les Paul_ ) or something else along lines that left a healthy amount of room for loud debate in an _otherwise occupied lab_.  In a moment of inspired brilliance, Miko addressed the young elk by a name of her choosing on an afternoon while McKay was in particularly good spirits.

“What was that?”  She’d nearly made it back to her work station by the time McKay called out to her.  At least he wasn’t using the voice for when he wanted the entire lab to hear him.

“Sir?”

“ _Yakul_.  What is that?  Does it mean something?”  Thankfully, his tone lacked the usual acidity he affected when he was preparing to defend his rag-tag family; he was genuinely interested in what she had to say.

“It’s, um…”  Miko cleared her throat and took a couple steps back towards where McKay was perched near the whiteboards.  She clutched her tablet against her chest, as if it would protect her from any quips.  “ _Yakul_ was a…  He was the mount of an ancient Prince who fought against Fear and Hatred.  He was smart, and especially brave for an elk.”  She shrugged.  “I always thought it was a strong name.”

“ _Yakul…_ ”

“Yes, sir.  But if you’ll excuse me, I have sim–”

“Simulations running, I know.  Go.”  He dismissed her with an absent wave.  _Huh_.  _Yakul._ He could live with that.“And Sheppard wanted to call you _Doug_."


	2. Gus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Team investigates a vessel they suspect was Ancient in origin, they come upon something rather unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Owl!verse is downright _teeming_ with crossovers. (I might have mentioned this earlier.) This chapter includes material from _Dean Winchester: Space Marine_ , and a nearly offhand mention of _Atlantis SEAL Team 1_.
> 
> Also, dialogue inside « _guillemets_ » instead of quotation marks is being heard through a radio. It's a throwback to when Rodney was still an owl, where his Squawkbox could project a digital approximation of his mental voice out loud locally, or through a radio transmission. When the latter option was engaged, Rodney was referred to as _running silent_.

Lorne and Winchester stood outside the craft, matching squinting-in-low-light faces, arms crossed over their P-90s, fierce owls on their shoulders, and hips canted towards each other.  They were really going to have to stop doing things like that; sooner or later someone that wasn’t as lenient as John would notice, and they’d get in trouble.

Lorne explained, “We split up, sir: I took Mars, Anders went with Dean.  A set of caves like this, I figured covering more ground to be the best course of action.  About an hour into it, Tycho started going nuts.  He smelled it before the scanners pinged anything.  He flew off like a bat out of hell, and eventually led us here.  We managed to get it open, and sweep the interior, but everyone knows McKay gets first crack at any spacecraft or there’s hell to pay, so we left it be.”

“You sure about that?  You keep your geeks on a pretty loose tether.”

“They’re linguists, sir; they get _look, but don’t touch_.  Engineers are the ones you have to look out for.”

“Tell me about it.”  Then his radio switched on.

« _Hey, Lightswitch, I’ve found a control room that could give me more insight in to what this thing actually is.  I need you to turn it on_.»

“From here?”

« _… **No** , from **here**.  This is reality, Colonel, not science fiction.  The ship itself isn’t one giant conduit for you to feel up whenever you feel like it._ »

“Where is _here_ , then?” he shot back.

« _Oh, uh…  That’s a good question – hold on._ »

So while Rodney figured out if he was lost or not, John suggested Lorne and Winchester should get back outside and _rendezvous_ with Ronon and Teyla, who were scouting the surrounding area.  Fly their owls a bit to shake off any cabin fever, get them to hunt something large enough to feed them all, and then set up camp ‘cause they were likely to be here for a while.  Ships, whether they ended up being a functional battlecruiser or not, always seemed to light a fire under the entire Science division.  They scrambled about, bursting with energy and enthusiasm at the acquisition of a _new toy_.  They took it apart, put it back together, poked and prodded, and studied it until the next _big deal_ came along.  Getting them to focus on anything else until that happened was a hefty challenge.

It appeared John was going to have to take the initiative on this one, and climbed into the ship.  He tapped his radio back on.  "Okay.  At the pile of crap at the end of the hall by the main hatch, did you take a left or a right?"

« _Huh?  How should I know?  That was **forever** ago._»

In that case, he may as well just start guessing.  Maybe he’d get lucky and find McKay before he got too aggravating or blew something up.  "Are Mars and Anders with you?  Maybe they kept track of where they were going.”  Left at the crap, right at the pockmarked bulkhead, straight to avoid the stairs…

« _Why would I bring **Linguists** with me?  They're more useless than a match in space._»

"DO YOU WANT TO STAY LOST OR WHAT, MCKAY?”

« _You’re getting close.  I heard you that time._ »

He had?

« _I **was** going to direct you to me, but I switched out my Lifesigns Detector for extra battery packs and cheese strings, so…_ »  The accompanying shrug wasn’t audible, but it was still there.

Lifesigns Detector?  Why hadn’t he thought of that?   _John Sheppard, you are an embarrassment to the Air Force.  –Hey, I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.–  Deal_.  …Was he talking to himself? _Focus, Sheppard_.

He pulled the LSD from his left breast pocket and switched it on.  It came to life in his hand, appropriately dim for the ship’s unlit interior, displaying him, central; what must be McKay, to the southwest; and Anders and Mars, back towards the hatch.

As helpful as the Lifesigns Detectors were, the only map they had in their memory was that of Atlantis.  When they were off-world they could tell you where lifesigns of a certain size were in relation to itself, but it couldn’t tell you if the hallway you were in ended in a sudden dark dead end–

“ _Dammit_.”

–and it especially couldn’t display whether or not there was a higher-than-average concentration of arachnids and their webbing strung across an entranceway.

“ _Sweet mother ff–!!_ ”  John wasn’t afraid of spiders, exactly, they just really, really upset his cool.  He wasn’t exclusionary either; since that deal with the _Iratus_ , all bugs gave him the heebies.  And so what if he flailed uncontrollably for a moment  and then spent half a minute leaning against a wall, humming _Big Iron_ under his breath?  It’s not like anybody saw.

Several more mishaps aside tracking Rodney down was managed rather quickly.  The scientist had set up a halogen lantern in a closet-sized room with one chair, a couple built-in desks, and a wall of blank monitors.  Hello, Ancient Pearl station.

“You rang, Doctor?”

Rodney turned around from where he was hunched over a dead-looking console opposite the wall of monitors.  He had a tablet braced along one forearm and a mess of alligator clips hanging around his neck. “ _Finally_.  What took you so long?  Get over here and get with the _laying-on of hands_ already, we have work to do.”  Rodney shook his hands at the unresponsive console before him.  “Make it _go!_ ”

Affecting a Scottish accent, John stepped forward to touch what could be a small screen, or a mouse pad, or an Ancient TV dinner tray and asked it expectantly, “ _Computer?_ ”

Nothing happened for a few moments, and then there was a low hum and the room started lighting up sporadically with faint _pings_ and _ticks_ , like old fluorescent tubes.

Sheppard backed up quickly before Rodney could push him out of the way.  He sat down heavily in the room’s single spinny chair that turned out to be bolted to the floor.  Everything in here was secured down in one way or another.  The ship must either be missing inertial dampeners, or vibrate something fierce while it’s running.  Or all the technicians had been kleptos.  “There anything else I can do?”

“Just sit there and continue to look pretty.”  Rodney leaned in to drop a kiss on his lips that made John instinctively glance toward the door, despite that he knew they were most definitely alone.  “ _Eugh_.  What is in your _hair?_ ”

Reminded of his earlier behaviour, John slouched deeper into the chair, embarrassed.  He scuffed his boots against the floor and reached up to casually run a hand through his hair, but encountering sticky web, his hand froze in place.  So much for conquering neuroses through nonchalance.

“Come here.”  The _stop freaking out_ remained unsaid, thankfully.  He pulled John forward by the back of his neck to rest his forehead against Rodney’s stomach.  He carded through the other man’s hair with his fingers, searching out any remaining bits of icky silk so John wouldn’t have to.  “Idiot,” he chastised fondly.

 

* *

 

So it wasn’t a spaceship.  It was never designed for exoatmospheric travel; in fact, it wasn’t meant to leave the ground. It wasn’t even a ship, really: it was a self-contained tunnel boring and mining craft, but Sheppard just blinked at him, clearly not hearing past “ _it doesn’t fly_ ” until Rodney explained further.

“ _It digs_.  It mines, processes, and stores naquadah until… whoever knows it’s here needs it and takes it.”

“That’s cool.”

“It’s _extremely_ cool is what it is.  It’s fuelled by a small portion of the very naquadah it mines, and its systems are fully automated, so from a technical standpoint, it could run forever.  –At least until all the storage units are full, or it’s shut down manually.”

“Or it breaks down,” John suggested.

“Or that.”

Brushing imaginary dust off his pants, Sheppard stood, took up his P-90, and turned on the barrel-mounted light.  “So let’s go find out what’s wrong with it.”

 

* *

 

It wasn’t a storage problem.  All the way at the tail end of the digger, the cargo areas were only a quarter full of refined naquadah.  A fact that, under normal circumstances, would be reason enough to call it a day and break out the good beer instead of the mead the botanists had been brewing, but Rodney was on a mission.  There was still more afoot at the Circle K.  He made some rough calculations as to how much naquadah there actually was, took a sample, and suggested they move on.

He lead them forward through the processing plant, past the main engines at centre-ship (if there was something wrong with them it would take more than just him to figure it out) all the way to the main drill at the front.  The ship was long and narrow, relatively speaking.  Shaped like a snake, or a very thick train, walking from end to end took some serious hiking.  Rodney kept up a steady stream of complaints: it was so dark his eyes were staring to hurt from reading the map on his tablet, the ten-thousand years worth of dust and grime was wreaking absolute havoc on his lungs, and did the Ancients have a thing against transporters when they built this rig?  He’d developed a Charley horse the size of Seabiscuit, he was sure of it.

The drill, its engines, and maintenance systems comprised the forward third of the ship.  It was large and densely-packed, and even completely motionless, it made John nervous.  Probably best to stay out of the way.  He went to lean against the forward wall, but Rodney grabbed him by his vest and _yanked_ him back towards all that exposed machinery.

“What are you, _deaf?_  I told you I was going to turn it on!”

John shook off Rodney’s hands.  “I was aiming for _low-key_ , in case you started throwing elbows if this thing didn’t work.”

“What?  I don’t _throw elbows_ – what does that even _mean?_  Oh, and by the way, Mr. Cellophane?   _That’s_ the drill, so if you want to make it home tonight I’d recommend doing your slinky leaning some place else.  Like… _here_.”

So John planted himself where Rodney pointed him and settled in for the long haul.  He checked his watch and activated his radio.  Anders and Mars were due for a check-in, and while the ship may not be harbouring any monsters, there were still plenty of other dangers for a couple unescorted soft-scientists to fall into.  He occupied himself with wrestling a report out of them – something about the digger being appropriated by the Ancients after it had been built by another race entirely – until they were cut off when the room exploded into motion and sound.

Belatedly, Rodney hollered out a warning.  “BY THE WAY, THIS MIGHT GET PRETTY LOUD.”

Sheppard shot him a snide look as he covered his ears with a wince.  The entire drill wall a rotating mess of deadly concentric rings.  In retrospect, he was very glad Rodney’d pulled him away from that.

“…Do you hear that?”

“ _WHAT?_ ”  Obviously not.  The noise was too oppressing to hear _anything_ other than the drill and the ringing in John’s head.  Not that that stopped Rodney from trying to yell over it.

The drill had started relatively easily, so the problem wasn’t that the digger could no longer tunnel.  It was clearly doing _something_ , and making a hell of a racket doing it.  “IT SHOULDN’T SOUND LIKE THAT.”

"WHAT _SHOULD_ IT SOUND LIKE?"

"LIKE WE WERE SHREDDING THROUGH SUPER-DENSE HEAVY METAL." 

"...I WAS ALWAYS MORE OF A SOUTHERN ROCK GUY, MYSELF."  John aimed for levity to counteract the pounding reaction headache building up right behind his eyes, but all he got out of Rodney was a disapproving scowl, so he scowled right the fuck back.  “HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT SOME _BORING_ MACHINE SHOULD SOUND LIKE ANYWAY?”

“ _TUNNEL BORING MINING CRAFT_.”

“ _WHATEVER!_ ”

“NOT ‘ _WHATEVER_ ’, SHEPPARD.  ONLY _TWO THINGS_ SHOULD BE PRODUCING SOUND RIGHT NOW–”

“ _Is one of them you?_ ”  He couldn’t help the snark.  It just slipped out.

More scowling, but now with emphatic, angry pointing.  “THE _ENGINES_ , AND THE _DRILL HEADS_.  THERE’S A THIRD THING MAKING NOISE IN HERE, SOMETHING _NOT MECHANICAL_ , AND _THAT’S_ WHAT’S WRONG.”  He turned around and pointed up to a second level of machinery.  “It’s coming from up there, I’m going to see what it is.  You stay here and get over being on your man-period.”

John didn’t catch that last part, but it was pretty obvious Rodney wanted him to stay out of his goddamned way.  He left John behind, climbing up a nearby ladder onto the narrow walkway without any hesitation.  Nothing here had the Ancient’s typical clean, sleek, spacious, and _safe_ style to it; everything was narrow openings, exposed pipes, lumpy welds, and had an overall dirty, industrial feeling to it.  Mars and Anders' partial report made more and more sense the further he thought on it.  This didn’t mesh with Ancient design at all, and yet Rodney wasn’t shying away from it in the least, he was as comfortable here as he was in Atlantis.   _He_ wasn’t being stumped by the architecture, and he didn’t feel like his brain was about to dribble out of his ears because something was _too loud_.

“SHEPPARD!   _TURN IT OFF!  SHEPPARD!_ ”  Suddenly Rodney was back at the top of the ladder, waving his arms, and making slashing eliminate motions toward a lever to John’s right.  John pulled it until it clicked into place, effectively shutting off the drill and all its components.   _Sweet blessed silence_.  Hopefully the guy that invented the Emergency Shut Off had ascended a long time ago and was living the good life on a beach in Space Barbados, cause he deserved it.

“Everything okay up there, McKay?”  John looked back up to the rickety scaffolding as he rubbed at his temple with the heel of one hand, only to see the scientist had disappeared.  He tried again, “McKay?”  Nothing.  Louder, “ _Rodney?_ ”  A few too many moments went by with no response, urging John into action, climbing up after him.

Rodney was fine.

If you consider sticking out of an access hatch like Winnie the Pooh as fine.  He’d removed his vest and jacket and dropped them on the grated flooring so that he could squeeze as far into the opening as he possibly could.

Tapping his earpiece, John activated their private channel and asked cautiously, “What’s up, Pooh Bear?

A clipped, « _I’m busy here, Sheppard_ ,» was all he got in reply before the radio clicked off.

…So he tried again.  “You’d tell me if we were in imminent danger, right?”  Or if he’d skinned his knee, if he swallowed a bug, forgot his sunscreen on the Jumper…

« _Oh.  Yeah.  Sure. **Shut up**_ **.** »

“You sure know how to make a man feel wanted.”  Despite that, his mood improved dramatically over the next handful of minutes, once he’d settled down to watch Rodney’s backside wiggle back and forth as he fiddled with whatever on the other side.  When Rodney finally scuttled out of the pipe he’d wedged himself into, he was sweaty and dirty and holding a tiny, and equally dirty, fluttering owlet by its legs.  “What’s this?” John asked.

“You have _no_ concept of what 'shut up' means, do you?”

John looked up at him from the owlet and grinned.

“ _This_ is what I heard, before.”

“You heard this little guy freaking out in a pipe… over _all_ that other shit?”

“It’s a very distinctive noise.”

“ _Apparently_.  How’d he get in here, anyway?”

“I have a theory about that.”  Turns out the digger had marooned itself through the wall of an underground cavern ten thousand years ago.  Conveniently, it had a design feature that if the drill ran against air for a certain amount of time, it shut down.  The naquadah ore already in the system at the time finished processing, was eventually moved to storage, and then the entire ship sat there, dormant, until SGA-2 stumbled upon it earlier that day.  The digger wasn’t airtight, especially at the front of the ship where all the intakes were, and there was visible sky way up at the cavern’s mouth.  “That’s how he got in.  Starting the drill back up did nothing but scare him, since we weren’t drilling into anything.  If we keep things quiet and get some food in him, he should calm right down.  If he keeps this up he’s just going to hurt himself.”  The owlet was still flapping its wings, throwing dust and ash into the air as it struggled to get out of Rodney’s practised grip.

If there was a surer way to put a halt to a day’s exploration than a frightened owlet, John had yet to find it.  He and Rodney were done for now, but they needed a few supplies before they could start making their way back to the surface.  He hailed Lorne over the radio.  “Major, you there?  Come back.”

« _Read you loud and clear, Colonel.  You itching to kill McKay yet?_ »

“Only a little more than I usually do.  Speaking of the good doctor, he has a favour to ask of you.”

Rodney looked up and met his eyes.  They were asking the same thing as Lorne in his ear.  « _And what would that be, sir?_ »

“He needs you to raise Tycho with some jesses, a hood, and a swaddling bandage.”  If Lorne didn’t have these things on him, Winchester would.  Owled teams never went off-world without a few extra basic supplies.

« _Sir?  At your last check-in, you were still in the ship.  Has that changed?_ »

“Not exactly, Major.  Trust us, no harm will come to your bird.”  As talented, smart, and well-trained as they were, no ‘Lantean owl could navigate both the complicated network of caves _and_ a congested ship like this one at flying speed.  No one at all familiar with the owls would ask that of them either.  Sheppard had another plan in mind.

« _I don’t doubt that.  He’s away, sir; Winchester’s just launched him._ »

“Good work, Major.  We’ll be back shortly, Tycho will be with us.  Sheppard out.”

 

* *

 

Dean had to physically hold Shingles back by his feet to keep him from flying off with his brother.  “What the hell was that about?”

“Guess they found another one in there.”  Lorne watched after his owl as he rose into the sky, higher and higher.  It didn’t happen nearly as often as people joked, and yet Dr. McKay’d developed a second reputation around the galaxy as a rescuer of these marvellous birds.  He didn’t dare think of where any of them would be if fate hadn’t nudged them Atlantis’ way.  Most of Dr. McKay’s owls had been rescued as orphaned chicks, and were then smuggled into the city, not unlike refugees.  “Poor thing must be a mess, trapped underground like that.”

“If anyone knows how to take care of it, it’s the Colonel and Dr. McKay.”  Dean was right.  Everything would be fine.

 

* *

 

Four bursts on the silent whistle – short, long, short, long – was the signal to _come here_ for all their birds.  Fortunately, John still had his on him.  He’d never taken it out of his vest.

Impressively quickly, Tycho found the cave from above, and came _screaming_ out of the sky in excitement. At the last possible second, he opened his wings with a crack, slowing himself to a hover and settled genteelly on John’s raised fists, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  John laughed up at the owl’s twittering face, accepting the nibbles to his nose as a very friendly greeting.  He missed receiving raptors like this.  Occasionally, he still worked with Copernicus and a couple of the others, but nowhere near as frequently as he had when Rodney had been an owl.  The owlets had long since grown up and didn’t need constant supervision anymore.  Instead, they were on teams, like Tycho and Shingles; or, like Archie, had made friends with other members of the expedition.  “I bet you terrify all the new guys with that act, don’t you, buddy?”

Tycho chirped indignantly.  He didn’t do that with just _anybody_.  Only his Uncle John!  (Nobody else trusted him enough to stop in time so they could catch him.)

“Alright, I’m sorry,” Sheppard apologised as he undid the jesses around the owl’s ankles, and rid him of his cargo.  He unwound the binding cloth and wrapped it loosely around his neck like a scarf, pausing to see if Tycho approved of his fashion choice.  The owl ruffled his feathers non-committally.  John _harumphed_ , “Some help you are.”  He transferred Tycho to his shoulder, where he could clutch at the strap of his TAC vest to his heart’s content without hurting him, then moved to help Rodney with hooding the distressed owlet.

It struggled and fought them every step of the way, and in the end the hood didn’t help.  If anything, it upset the owlet even more, to the point where it began to shed feathers.  It was the strangest thing.  Depriving a bird of its sight will normally calm it right down in a nearly trance-like state, but not this one.  Its distress was even beginning to affect Tycho, who was shifting anxiously from foot to foot while he tried to help by chattering at it soothingly.  Working together, Rodney and John quickly wrapped the panicking creature up in the soft binding cloth.  That way, it couldn’t hurt and exhaust itself by flailing around constantly.

Now all they had to do was navigate the mile-long maze through the pitch black underground with a terrified owlet and Rodney’s Charley horse.  Superb.

 

* *

 

While Sheppard, McKay, and the linguists had been underground all afternoon and evening, the rest of their teams had set up camp, hunted and cooked a wild pig, and scouted the mountain and its neighbouring valleys.  According to Teyla, there were a number of caverns like the one the digger had run aground in, but no nearby villages. If there were people living on this planet, they were either not within half a day’s walk, or very well hidden.  No locals meant no one to argue that the ‘Lanteans had _no right_ to all that mined naquadah they could put to good use.  A resource that had sat underground for thousands of years, right under their noses, with no one being the wiser.  John loved planets with _No Obvious Natives_ because it meant less paperwork for him afterward.  Always a plus, as far as he was concerned.

Also on a positive note, the owlet had stopped fighting its bindings a while ago, so Rodney carefully unwrapped it and tried feeding it small portions of the wild pig they’d left uncooked.  It accepted the food, bolting it down quickly as if it was afraid the meat would be taken away, but then it would warble strangely between gulping swallows.

“What’s it saying?” Ronon asked from the other side of the fire.

Rodney shook his head uncertainly.  “I don’t know.  It’s all gibberish to me.”

“Is that odd?” one of the linguists, he wasn’t sure which, inquired as well.

The people closest to Rodney often witnessed him engaging in what was quite obviously two-way conversation with his owls, during _and_ after his time as one of them.  It had been like that since the very beginning; Rodney served as interpreter between Raptors and People.  Surprisingly enough, getting his old vocal chords back didn’t change anything at all: he spoke, they understood; they spoke, he understood.

Not that they spoke in words, but still.

It could’ve had something to do with going through the ‘Gate, or that it wasn’t comfortable enough with Rodney yet, or perhaps the owlet had simply been traumatised by the drill.  “Can _you_ guys make any sense of this?” he directed at Tycho and Shingles, who stopped preening each other to supply a pair of reluctant no’s.

Maybe it was broken, the poor thing.

 

* *

 

It was Carson who noticed its eyes.

During their post-mission physicals Rodney’d sat the owlet on the rail at the foot of the bed he was on, while Carson made sure that tunnel boring dust trap hadn’t shot his lung capacity to hell.  Rodney was trying to exhale steadily through a tube for as long as he could despite Ronon and Sheppard making faces at him from across the room.  He probably wasn’t doing very well.

“Who’s this wee one, aye?” Carson bent to peer at the owlet.  “I cannae say I’ve seen you before.  You’re a handsome lad, aren’t you?  Even with…”  He stopped, and pulled a pen light out of his pocket.  “Rodney?”  The man in question, who was red in the face and beginning to wheeze by then, pointed emphatically at the breathing test he was currently occupied with.  Carson shook his head, clicked on the pen light, and flashed it over the owlet’s cloudy eyes.  There was no reaction, pupillary or otherwise.

“What’s up, doc?”  Sheppard called over.  He buttoned up his shirt as he made his way across the infirmary to them.

Carson swept the light across the owlet’s eyes again to the same result.  “If I had to hazard a guess, Colonel, I would say this wee bird cannae see a thing.”

There was a sharp gasp as Rodney finished the test and pulled air back into his lungs.  “Are you saying it’s _blind?_ ”

“He’s non-responsive to light, is what I’m sayin’.”

That would explain why the hood had only upset it further.  Or why it took especially poorly to being restrained at first.  However, it didn’t necessarily explain the owlet’s aphasia, thought it could be related.

“Now, as I've said _multiple times_ : I am _not_ a vet, nor am I an optometrist.  Drs. Petersen and Chakrabarti, however, _are_ , and could give you considerably more informed diagnoses.  I’ll pass word on to them about our newest citizen, so you lot can _stop looming_ ,” that part was distinctly aimed at Ronon and Sheppard, “and get _out_ of my infirmary.”

They were all quiet, even the owlet stopped shifting about.  Then Rodney felt it necessary to point out, “But I'm not done my exam.”

“You’ll live.  Now get out, I need these beds.”  He stared Rodney down, conveying hostile threats of needles and things with his eyes until he got up, collected his jacket and his owl, and left.

Once out in the safety of the hall, Rodney vented, “Jeez, what crawled up his ass and died?”

“I think it was you,” Ronon offered.

“ _Gross_.”  Rodney glared back in disgust.

Sheppard’s braying laughter echoed down Atlantis’ halls.  Deep down somewhere, the city _thrummed_ at the feeling.

 

* *

 

“How about _Dyson?_ ”  Rodney leaned out of the bathroom the next morning, toothbrush pulling at the side of his mouth.

John stood, hands on hips, absolutely stumped as to how Rodney’s bed kept managing to throw off his perfect hospital corners.  “As in the vacuum?”  Maybe it was haunted, or had Ancient _Magic Fingers_.  It couldn’t possibly be the dozen-or-so owls that routinely glided in through the open windows whenever they pleased and proceeded to use the bed as a cushy nest.

“As in the _Dyson sphere_ , you bonehead.”

_His_ bed – his tiny, pathetic, and now practically unused excuse for a bed – could maintain perfectly folded sheets for days if it had to.   _Weeks_ , even!  And it _had_ , on occasion: like that time Kolya got the jump on him and… introduced him to Todd, and when those so-fast-they-were-slow Ancients thanked them for taking such good care of their city by drop-kicking them back to Earth for a month and a half, to name a couple.  Every time, he came back and his bed was just like he’d left it.  Pristine and empty.

“Right.  …What’s that?”

“ _‘Oo’re bidding._ ”  Toothpaste dribbled down Rodney’s chin.  He wiped it away with the back of one hand.

“ _Nn_ ,” John grunted more at the unruly duvet than in defence of his faked ignorance.  How had Rodney gotten a _duvet_ , anyway?  He was pretty sure all the other beds in the city had regular blankets or comforters, but then, knowing Rodney this was probably a _hypo-allergenic_ duvet or something.

Speaking around his resumed brushing, Rodney explained, “Freeman Dyson postulated that an advanced alien civilization with enormous power requirements would devise a way to harness solar energy by building a sphere that encompassed a star –”

“Like an Alderson Disk?”  Baiting Rodney was like picking at a scab; sometimes he just couldn’t help it.

Rodney stared for a moment, then spat out his mouthful of toothpaste.  John’s easy knowledge of science fiction (and science fact, for that matter) still managed to jump up and surprise him and the strangest times, even if he was actually wrong at the heart of the matter.  “Er, no.  Firstly, one is a _sphere_ , and one is a _ring_.  Secondly, a Dyson Sphere is a source of _power_ , while an Alderson Disk is an artificial living platform–”

John cut him off before he could build up too much steam.  They had places to be, after all.  “How about _Jim?_ ”

“Starship captains aside, that is a _horrible_ name.  He deserves something more noble, like _Galileo_.”

“Isn't that a little ironic?  Galileo was an _observational astronomer_.”

“… _Right_.”

One last tug on the freaking _duvet_ and it all clicked into place.  Order.  Uniformity.   _Finally_.  John watched carefully for the turn-down boggart to pop out of the non-existent woodwork.

He was still keeping watch when Rodney came out of the bathroom, still slightly damp, and ready to tackle today’s helping of emergencies.  He took note of John’s fixation.  “Are you being neurotic about the sheets again?”  This, or reactions like it, always reared their heads for a few days after a mission where he didn't get to shoot something.  Rodney thought of it as his _Big Damn Hero syndrome_.  “You realise that’s weird, right?”

John snapped out of his daze, looking up with a distracted, “ _Huh?_ ”

“You are the strangest man I've ever met, John Sheppard.”

“In the best possible way though, right?”

“Let’s just say, you’re lucky you’re hot.”

John ducked his head bashfully, bringing his forehead down to the perfect place for Rodney to lean up and kiss it.  As far as he was concerned, John never let him kiss him enough.  He understood why they had to keep  _this_ as low-key as possible, he really did.  He understood how the American military felt toward relationships like theirs.  He understood, but he didn't have to like it.

If there were small ways he could press John’s superior’s buttons without getting John in trouble, he would gladly do so.  At every opportunity.  If that meant delaying John’s morning timetable with Caldwell due to a spur-of-the-moment quickie, so be it.

 

* *

 

For a while after, the only sound in the room was that of their heavy breathing.  The constant hum of the city and the crashing of the waves below faded away until it was just them.  That is, until Rodney suddenly spoke, his chest rumbling deeply under John’s cheek, jolting him away from the threat of unconsciousness.

“Gustaf Dalén was a blind physicist around the turn of the twentieth century.  He received the Nobel prize in 1912 for inventing the Sun Valve.”

John was suddenly worried.  “Don’t tell me you were thinking about that while we were…”

“No, no.  It came to me just now.”

“Divine inspiration?”  John grinned.

Rodney rolled his eyes.  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

John shook his head, relaxed and content …until his watch starts beeping.  “ _Shit_.  Shitshitshitshit–”

Only once John had catapulted himself off the bed and into the bathroom, did Rodney mentally congratulate himself on a plan well executed, and gave Gustaf a thumbs up that he couldn’t see.  John managed the fastest shower in the history of showers (McGarrett’s team of SEALs would even be impressed), and towelled himself _just_ dry enough that he was no longer dripping before pulling his clothes back on.  Rodney watched from the bed, smirking lazily.

“I’ll see you later?  If I havn’t been fired?”

“I await your return.”  Rodney stretched bodily, making John groan.  It wouldn’t take too much more to convince him to call in sick and spend the morning in bed together.  Unfortunately, Rodney had a schedule to keep.  One that was _considerably_ more important than babysitting senior officers.  “ _Go_.  I thought you were late.”

“Right!”  He picked up his thigh holster, toed on his boots, and stepped in to give Rodney a carefully chaste kiss and grab his radio.  “Later, Gus!” he threw back to the owlet, as he rushed out the door.


End file.
